| The Observation Survey literacy assessment will help me with a number of items in determining the variety of skills that my subject has in order to read a continuous text. Stacy is a 6-year-old female in first grade. She is the middle child of three girls and attends Washington Heights Elementary in Fort Worth. She and I performed the assessment in her classroom on three separate occasions. During this time, the other classmates were away for their P.E. and music block. The classroom appeared to be a rich literary environment with word walls, student work hung, books lining the chalkboards, reading and writing centers, easels with big books displayed and student journals on each child�s desk. *The first task implemented was letter identification. I wanted to determine what letters she knew. Which letters she could identify. I tested all letters both lower and upper case. I introduced the task by simple asking: What do you call these? Can you find some that you know? I asked these while pointing to each letter. If she did not respond I would say, �Do you know its name? What sound does it make? Or do you know a word that starts like that?� Results Stacy�s confusions were as follows: For �K� she said �C�, for �U� she said �Y�, and �p� she said �q�. There was confusion with both �Z, z� each time she said �X� but then self corrected with �z�. Also there was a 3 to 4 second pause for the letters �H� and �Q� before identifying them. She scored 48/54. 88%. *The second task was administering List B of a word test. These words included: and, to, will, look, he, up, like, in, where, Mr., going, big, go, let, on. I started by asking her to read the list. I then helped her with the practice word �said�. I did not help with any other words. This test helped in indicating the extent to which she had accumulated a reading vocabulary of the most frequently used words in the �Ready to Read� series. Results Stacy made 12 attempts out of 15 words. With each of the two words that began with �w� she said �with�. She said �leet� for �let� using phonetic strategies. She read �on� as �no�. She scored 8/15. 53%. *The third task was determining what she has learned about the way we print language. This concepts tested were: the front of the book, that print (not the pictures) tells the story, that there are letters, and clusters of letters called words, that there are first letters and last letters in words, that you can choose upper or lower case letters, that spaces are there for a reason, and that different punctuation marks have meaning (stop, asking, talking). The booklet used for the concepts of print is Sand and Stones (Clay, 1972). There is a series of scripted questions that I followed for each page. Examples: For the orientation of the book, I passed it to her upside down and backwards then asked her to show me the front. For the concept of print, not picture I said, �I�ll read this story. You help me. Show me where to start reading. Where do I begin to read?� For letter order I would ask, �What�s wrong on this page?� or �What�s wrong with the writing on this page?� Results Stacy has book-handling skills with beginning and end identification. She is directional and sweeps when reading. She matches word to word so she is able to point out single letters and words. Stacy was able to give the meaning of the (.) but not the (?) or (,). She was unable to identify the mistakes in letter and word arrangements. She scored 17/24. 71%. Useful strategies with words: Stacy recognizes word and line arrangement, also beginning and end of words. She responds to initial and ending sounds and relates to experiences to prior knowledge. Problem strategies with words: She has a problem with seeing that letters in a word may be switched and that lines are switched. She herself said �no� for the word �on�. *The fourth task examines Stacy�s writing behavior. This is to determine the extent of her capability to construct words from memory. I allowed her 10 minutes to complete this task. I gave her a blank piece of paper and a pencil and then said, �I want to see how many words you can write. Can you write your name?� Then I asked, �Do you know how to write, �is�, �to�, �I�. Then I told her to write all the words she knew. I would sometimes prompt by making suggestions on categories: family members, pets, and things she likes to eat, etc. Results Stacy was able to correctly spell 12 words out of 16 attempts. She needed teacher prompting on all words except two, which she got from the walls in the classroom. She missed the word �dog� due to writing the �d� as a �b�. Useful strategies with letters: Stacy forms letters with ease and uses the beginning letter sound to cue her prior knowledge of words. Problem strategies with letters: She cannot detect an error of a mismatch of letters when reading along with the teacher. She consistently confused the �d� by writing �b� and also �q� by saying �p�. *The fifth element of the assessment was hearing and recording sounds in words or dictation. I would ask her to record a sentence that I would dictate to her. I chose selection A that read, � I have a big dog at home. Today I am going to take him to school.� I first read at normal speed, and then dictated slowly, word by word. During the course of her writing I added, �How would you start that? What can you hear?� Results Stacy has sound knowledge of letters. She continues to confuse the �d� and writes �b�. She wrote the majority of initial and ending sounds of all words. She scored 28/37. 76%. *The last element was determining the strategies she used while reading text by using running records. With this, I can determine what Stacy can do, what is partially known, and the boundaries of her knowledge. These ideas are transferred from the analysis of the cues used and the ones neglected. I recorded errors and self-corrections. I also determined the type of error made, whether it was a semantic, syntactic, or visual. Results Stacy read a determined text of difficulty labeled as hard (1.8): The Pony on the Plane. She used meaning, structural and visual cues when reading the text. Stacy�s errors made sense to the listener but words didn�t match the text. Her running words error was 32/10 or a 1:3 error rate. Giving her 66% accuracy and a 1:11 self-correcting rate. Useful strategies on text: Stacy controls directional movement and reads for meaning. She tries using word attack skills when coming to an unknown word. Her error substitutions seemed to have made sense. Problem strategies on text: She doesn�t correct words that do not make sense in text. Such as saying �greet� for �get�. Summary Stacy has the skills of an emergent reader. She has good handling skills and directionality. She can match said words to written words by hearing the initial sound. Stacy struggles with sounding out words quickly and effectively even though she knows most all letter sounds. She also has about a 1:2 ratio with getting the middle letter sound when writing from dictation. Again, she is using meaning, structural and visual cues when reading the text. Stacy�s errors made sense to the listener but often did not match the text. For Stacy, I believe daily practice in writing, such as journaling, could help in correcting the errors she frequently made in letter reversals and identification. The journal can be used as her individualized instruction in correcting mistakes. Since she is soundly aware of all letter sounds, I may give her hints on how to remember which way the �d� and �b� are formed. Although this is a very common mistake at this age and tends to correct itself with developing growth, if the teacher finds it interfering with spelling then she may want to remember, � a donut is round and starts with �d� therefore when beginning to write the letter �d� think of donut which is round, draw the circle first then attach the leg. For the �b� think of a building. A building has long straight walls, draw a line when thinking of the �b� then add the circle.� With words that she reads in text that do not make sense, I may stop her and I would reread the sentence and ask her what she hears wrong. Again, with growth and practice, she will continue to develop as a reader that will read for meaning and will begin to catch more of her mistakes and correct them. Overall, I believe Stacy is developing nicely with her reading and writing skills. Daily enrichment with activities in a literature based environment will enhance Stacy�s abilities as an effective reader and writer. |